


never met, or never parted

by norvegiae



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Afterlife, Canon Compliant, Ghosts, Growing Old, M/M, Old Age, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22497958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norvegiae/pseuds/norvegiae
Summary: Out on the shale, Francis sees an image of someone who had left the world too soon, sooner than he deserved. The image lingers, after the man has gone.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	never met, or never parted

Life moved slowly, now that he was someone else. Life was quieter. For the most part, life was easier, but Francis had not yet been able to decide if life was now _better_.

Still, he was warm in his furs, and he had food in his belly, and he had people who told him stories, and taught him how to live here. They had taken him in with a not inconsiderable amount of wariness and doubt, but Francis had wanted to prove himself from the beginning. Even with one hand, he was keen to participate – to fish, to hunt, to build.

Eventually, the dust had settled, and this small group seemed happy to have Francis around. Francis was happy to have them. He did not remember the last time he had spoken English. It had been years since – since that life had ended. He did not remember how many years. He remembered only images. Thomas Blanky, armed only with forks. Jopson, on the floor, with gravel under his fingernails. A pair of stolen boots.

He had been through the worst of his grief, and now these images provoked no sadness. They were just facts now. He had known these people, and this is what had happened to them. Like scientific data, it could not be argued away. It just _was_ , and he had come to terms with it.

Those people belonged to Captain Crozier, and he was not Captain Crozier anymore.

He saw a figure on the horizon once, one bright summer night.

“Look,” he had said, gesturing with his handless arm. “There’s someone out there.”

Distracted from their food now, everyone turned to look, some squinting in the bright light. There was silence for a moment. Francis’ eyes never left that hazy silhouette.

“I don’t see anything,” someone eventually said, and there were murmurs of agreement from the rest of the group.

Francis blinked, looked over at them, and back out to the horizon. The figure had gone. He nodded, unable to think of anything to say. Someone put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, comfortingly.

It had been an illusion, he decided. A sort of mirage. He was tired and hungry, and his brain had put a shape on the crest of that hill. He thought no more of it.

The figure came back, however, a few weeks later. Still only a silhouette, unmoving, on the horizon. Never close enough for Francis to make out any features, but he was suddenly sure that he knew who it was.

The figure was there for only a minute, as if James Fitzjames had been brought in by the changing winds, and by them, carried away again.

***

The next time James Fitzjames appeared, he was a little closer, a little clearer.

He was wearing the clothes in which he had been buried. If Francis thought that this was an angel visiting him, a person restored to full glory through God’s grace, he was wrong. James looked as he had when he died. His skin was grey, bloody, mottled with dark bruises. There were still blood stains down one side of his body. His hair was lank and long, hanging to his shoulders now. He was barefoot.

He was intact, as far as Francis could see. He had seen what they had done to Goodsir. It could be the same with James, under his clothes, but Francis did not know for sure.

He did not think about it. He could not think about it.

This was no ghost, he knew. It was James’ body, but James was not in there. There was no life behind those flat, dark eyes. Francis knew as well, of course, that this was not James’ body reanimated. He was sure James still lay where he had left him.

(He knew the place where they had buried James. He knew exactly how to find it. Like words etched into stone with a knife, so was the location of James' resting place imprinted in his mind. He would never go there again. He could not bear it. He could not and would not see what Hickey had done, whatever he had done, when he came to take James' boots.)

This was a spirit of sorts, then, a vision. An image of something that had left the world too soon, sooner than it deserved. The image lingered, after the man had gone. Francis wondered what it wanted.

He was moved to act, to speak to it, even, but he rubbed his weary eyes and when he looked up again, James was gone, and did not come back for some weeks.

***

One day, when the sky was slate grey and heavy with cloud, James came closer than he had before.

So close that Francis could see the blood in his eyes, the blood dried around his cracked mouth. The blood in his hair, the blood on his clothes. His cheeks were concave, and his eyes seemed to bulge slightly.

James stood very still, his face a blank mask, utterly devoid of expression. No happiness or joy, Francis thought, but no pain. He found this a bearable thing to contemplate.

Francis was in the middle of repairing his harpoon. The blade was coming loose, and he had been tying tight strips of sealskin around it, to hold it in place. It was not a permanent fix, and in truth it was a rather amateur effort, but Francis was still learning how these sorts of things were done. Most of the others had gone hunting, others were in their tents.

For the time being he was quite alone, and then James was there.

Francis looked up from his task, sat on the floor as he was. James was no more than fifteen feet away. He was moved to speak again, and he did not fight it.

“Hello, James.”

There was no response. Francis had not expected one, but it felt nice to speak English again, to feel the familiar weight of James’ name on his tongue.

“It’s good to see you again.”

There was no response.

“I’ve only the one hand, now.” Francis’ tone was conversational, as if he had bumped into an old acquaintance on the street, as if this wasn’t the man who had died in his arms. “You’ve missed a lot.”

There was no response.

Francis looked up into that face – awful, ruined, an insult to what it had been before – and smiled.

 _This spirit has come to torment me_ , he could have cried, but he didn’t. It wasn’t true. He felt no torment. There was a strange contentment in seeing James’ thin figure, his dull eyes, his flat expression. It felt natural, almost. Of course James should come back, and find him here. They had been on the cusp of something, before James had died. Francis had felt it, a dim ember in his chest getting bigger and warmer the more he had looked into James’ dark eyes, the more he found out about James, his past, his secrets. The more he realised that this was a man just like himself; an outcast, desperately looking for acceptance in a world so resolute to keep it from him.

Francis loved James Fitzjames, and he had never told him.

Francis’ memories were bad – in the beginning they were bad enough to wake him from fitful sleep with a gasp, a cry – but the _absence_ now felt like the worst thing. Since he had been a boy, he had been surrounded by people, held together in the close confines of this ship or that. It had always been noisy, and uncomfortable, but it was all that Francis had ever really known. He had led his men, Franklin’s men, and grown closer to them than to any others on earth.

They were all gone now, in one way or another. Every last one of them gone. The weight of it threatened to crush Francis, sometimes. He could barely breathe with it in his head, in his heart.

The absence of all those men was the worst thing. To have James Fitzjames, or an approximation of him, here, brought Francis comfort. Over the course of months and years, he had made it out of the fog of the very worst grief, and now he could look upon Fitzjames and smile.

This was his friend, and Francis was very glad to see him.

“You look a fright, Captain.” Francis grinned now, which was something he had not done for a very long time. It felt strange on his face, but there was a bubble of something building up inside of him. What an absurd situation this was. The corpse of his- of James, stood before Francis, and Francis only wanting to laugh. He had buried James years ago, and Francis’ heart had broken in a way he never could have imagined, and now James was here again, and Francis could not put a damper on his joy. “Where on earth are your epaulettes?”

There was no response.

“You can’t possibly go to the theatre, looking like that.” Francis laughed. He wondered briefly if he was going mad. “They wouldn’t let you in.”

There was no response.

Francis heard noises behind him – the hunters returning, and he twisted around to look at them approaching, carrying with them the game they had caught. When he looked back again, James was gone. Francis still felt like laughing.

***

The next time James appeared, he was altered. His clothes were still tattered, but clean now. He wore shoes. His skin was not so sallow, the blood was gone from his face.

Francis wondered what it meant, and could not come up with an answer.

James stayed for hours, keeping vigil as Francis disassembled his tent. They were moving south as winter approached. Francis’ movements were slow, now. Age was catching up with him, and he felt arthritis in his fingers, his wrists, his knees.

He did not complain as he worked, because he was many things, but he had never been one to complain about physical labour. He did not complain, also, because when he noticed James was with him again, he had brightened and talked to him of inconsequential things.

“Who are you talking to?” Someone asked, having come up to him without him noticing.

Francis looked into the young woman’s face, and smiled. “Myself, I think.”

James had gone again.

***

Francis is ill, and he knows it. He is an old man, and he is ill.

James is always around, these days.

Francis leaves his tent in the morning, and James is there. That same empty expression, those flat eyes. Francis goes hunting with the others (he is slow and aching and mostly useless now, so he hauls things and stands around), and when they come back to camp, James is still there.

It disconcerts Francis, sometimes, because this is different from before, when James would flit into his vision for ten minutes, or an hour, and then leave again for weeks. Francis does not know what James is doing, he does not know what James wants. He finds it hard to sleep sometimes, knowing that James is outside.

Nevertheless, to see James still cheers him, and when he is outside at a loose end, he finds himself asking James questions, in the hope that James will come back to himself and answer.

There is never a response.

Francis is ill, and everyone seems to know it. They seem to accept it, as if it makes sense. Francis supposes that it does. Everyone has their time, and he feels that his is coming.

People stop asking him to do things. It is slow and gradual. They encourage him to lie down when he can. He fights this, at first, because he is loath to be idle while there are things he could be doing. He often gets up, to try and help, and is always steered back into his tent.

“Please, Grandfather,” the young ones say each time, “stay in bed.”

He is nobody’s grandfather, but they have recently given him the name, and it has stuck.

He still wants to protest, to get up and work – to see James outside, stood to attention like a Marine – but he is tired. He is so tired. It becomes harder and harder to fight the urge, to lie wrapped in furs. It is comfortable and warm, and he can rest. Eventually, this is all he can do.

Day and night start to blur together. Francis loses track of who is in the tent. He will be alone and close his eyes for a second, just to blink, and when he opens them again, there are two or three people there, watching him, giving him something to eat, something to drink.

Something still coherent in his mind wonders if this is how it was for James, at the end. But then again, James’ decline and end were torturous, and now Francis only feels numbing exhaustion pull at every fibre of his being.

Someone murmurs something and helps him take a drink of water. They brush back the hair from his head. Francis thinks of Thomas Jopson. He closes his eyes and lets sleep take him again.

When he wakes next, the tent is full of people. Everyone seems to have assembled, and the tent is too small for all of them, but they are all here. _They know,_ Francis thinks. _It’s the end, and they know._ He tries to look each one in the face, because they are his family now and he loves them, even as his failing memory cannot recollect each and every name.

He looks to the doorway, because someone else has just arrived. He sees who it is, sees the face that comes to him in his dreams, and he lets out a shuddering, rasping breath.

James Fitzjames has come into his tent, which has never happened before. For years, Francis has only seen him outside, on the shale, in the snow, under the sky and the clouds and the sun and the moon. Now, James has crossed a threshold, and come inside. He is as he had been on the dock at Greenhithe, at the Admiralty gala. He is shining in his dress uniform, his hair is neat and curled. His medal glints on his chest. He is fresh into his thirties, and radiant.

His expression is still blank, but he is _looking_ at Francis now. There is something in his eyes – a hint or a spark of something. Francis knows this is different. Francis knows something has changed, and he thinks that it is himself.

James is moving towards him. In all the years that James has been appearing before Francis, he has been inanimate. Now he is moving. No one else seems to notice him. He passes through people to close the distance between them.

James kneels at his bedside and rests a hand on his forehead. His hand is colder than anything Francis has ever felt before, but it is like a balm to him. It feels solid, and real. The world around Francis is falling away, but the hand remains.

Francis closes his eyes, and suddenly there is a voice he has not heard in decades. A deep voice, a polished English accent.

“Come on now, dear man. You’re nearly there.”

Francis follows the sound of that voice. He will follow it forever.

**Author's Note:**

> me: thank god for fix-it AUs where james survives. what would we do without them  
> also me: only writes fics where james is dead
> 
> title taken from Ae Fond Kiss by Robert Burns (1791). Rachel Sermanni also sings a lovely cover of it, if you're interested. 
> 
> find me on tumblr - norvegiae.tumblr.com


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